Music

Sunday, March 06, 2011

I’m assuming you’ve all been following the big reveals for all the winners at the 5th Annual Muriel Awards, the last awards gathering of the season and surely the most important, gaining in stature and allure with every new edition. If you haven’t (and frankly, no excuse is good enough), here’s a handy click-friendly guide to each award, from first to freshest, the Golden Muriel for Best Picture courtesy of longtime Muriellete Jim Emerson. A word of thanks must be conveyed to Muriels founder Paul Clark (and his late but no less lovely guinea pig, for whom our awards have been named) and Steve Carlson, both of whom handle this event each year with aplomb and tireless energy. The administration of something like this always requires so very much more effort and care than one would ever think-- if one did think it, one would likely sidestep the duty altogether. But not Paul and Steve, and thanks to them we have another group of brilliantly written essays examining for the last time (at least under an umbrella such as this) the great achievements of the past movie year. Much appreciation to you both, gentlemen. And now let’s see what the Muriel voters had to say and how they voted. (My complete ballot follows the list of links.)

Best Cinematic Breakthrough [5](vague explanation: a performer, filmmaker, or technician who made a notable debut in film, took his/her career to a higher level, or revealed unforeseen layers to his/her talent during the year 2008)

Best Web-Based Criticism [5](Please include the site name and URL. Remember, sites run by Muriel Awards voters are ineligible to win, although sites that Muriel voters contribute to are eligible. Also, The House Next Door is ineligible this year, as it was last year's winner and we'd like a little variety.)

You can read the tallies of the voting in each individual category, plus access the individual ballots of all the voters (see, Oscar, Muriel is all about full disclosure too!) by clicking here. For now, bye, Muriel. See you next year, sweetheart!

2 comments:

Dan: I did. I filled my ballot out late one night, the deadline for handing in ballots looming, and I told myself I was going to go with what was foremost in my head for each category-- Top of the mind, Ma! And except for the Best Movie of 1960, 1985, 2000 and the '50s categories, for which I indulged in the complete lists available on IMDb and Wikipedia to jog my memory, I stuck by that. No body or bodies of work in 2010 seemed sufficiently noteworthy to me at the time, so that category remained empty on my ballot. Now, of course, looking over the results and everyone else's ballots, Dan, you can just chalk it up to what we used to refer to as creeping senility. That about says it all!